As demonstrated by U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,797, it is known to provide food product scales capable of printing labels having a coupon part with a coupon bar code thereon. As demonstrated by European Patent Application No. EP 1,197,892 A2, control messages and information can be sent from remote locations to implement or adjust the coupon messages printed by any give scale in a store. As explained in co-pending application Ser. No. 10/423,471, filed Apr. 25, 2003, which application is assigned to the assignee of the present application, incentives can be printed on labels or paper tickets, and can also be communicated to store customers using displays.
Unfortunately, when it comes to perishable food products such as those commonly found in the deli, meat & fish or fruit & vegetable departments, different store chains can use different product identifiers for the same food products, making it difficult to easily manage and distribute similar promotions for different store chains. It would be desirable to have an effective, computerized system for managing coupons, incentives, advertisements and other promotions across multiple store chains. Because manufacturers are typically charged for each coupon or other promotion distributed, it would also be desirable to provide an audit function to assure manufacturers that they are only being billed for legitimate distribution of promotions.